


Under the weather

by marysutherland



Series: David Holmes [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-20
Updated: 2011-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-26 08:09:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marysutherland/pseuds/marysutherland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't easy being married to Mycroft Holmes, as Lestrade is finding out. Especially when Mycroft finds out about one of his past indiscretions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily influenced by Fengirl's [Quiet Storm](http://archiveofourown.org/works/154386) (although the thunderstorm has been relocated in time) and Blooms84's [Some Things He Doesn't Need to Know](http://archiveofourown.org/works/161125). Betaed by Blooms84.

Perhaps it was inevitable that if you were in a relationship with a man who largely controlled the British government, you needed to keep a lot of secrets. But when Lestrade had first got seriously involved with Mycroft Holmes – as in having rather a lot of sex with him – he soon realised it was often better to stick to Don't Ask, Don't Tell about their previous lives. They had a surprising amount in common nowadays – it turned out that crooks and idiots were much the same whether they were running nightclubs in Streatham or nuclear-armed states – but the further back you went, the more you realised that they came from different worlds. It would no more have occurred to the thirteen year-old Lestrade that learning Ancient Greek was fun, than it would have occurred to the sixteen-year old Mycroft to run away and join the circus. When Mycroft had been at Oxford and carefully planning his ascent to the top, Lestrade had been happily and thoughtlessly engaged in a race to the bottom.And Mycroft had probably already been running half the country by the time Lestrade finally got his act together and applied to join the CID.

In fact, he and Mycroft had such entirely different experiences of the Eighties, that Lestrade wondered if they'd been living in the same country. All that stuff about Britain being two nations was true of course - especially under Thatcher - and it had applied to the gay world as well. But unlike a lot of the other posh boys Lestrade had met then, Mycroft hadn't been slumming it, copping off with the plebs. He'd been in some high-minded, intense romance with another boy at Oxford, which had all ended tragically, when the poor sod had been killed, aged twenty-three. Lestrade knew just enough about David Holmes by now to know not to ask more. Definitely dangerous territory.

It didn't matter about their pasts, Lestrade had decided, as long as they could keep the future on track. He'd been sure pretty early on that Mycroft hadn't got involved with him in some peculiar midlife crisis. Mycroft took the thing seriously – Mycroft took everything too seriously – and Lestrade was determined he wasn't going to be the one to wreck a relationship this time. And if part of keeping Mycroft happy was downplaying the more lurid bits of Lestrade's old life – or at least avoiding reminiscing fondly about previous partners - that was manageable. It wasn't as if there was that much to report for the last decade or so, anyhow, and the few of his old friends who he was still in regular contact with were all now equally boring and respectable. Though to be on the safe side, he'd tried to ensure Mycroft never met the few less presentable ex-lovers of his who were still alive and living in London.

Except one, of course. The most alive and the most London-based of all the men he'd ever slept with, and probably Lestrade's single biggest ever mistake – and he's made some bad calls over the years. But nothing as stupid as his involvement with Sherlock. His relationship with Mycroft would have been over even before it began, if Mycroft had known about Lestrade sleeping with Sherlock. Good job he'd dodged the bullet with that one, that somehow none of Mycroft's spooks had caught that reckless night on tape.

Over the months he'd been involved with Mycroft he'd gradually started to relax, realised that no-one but he and Sherlock knew. He'd still panicked occasionally that Sherlock was going to spill the beans at some climactic moment. Literally had nightmares before his wedding that Sherlock might choose then to reveal all, but he'd evidently misjudged him. Sherlock, whatever his long list of other failings, could keep quiet about some things, and he was keeping his mouth shut on this one. No evidence against Lestrade, so he was going to get away with it. Unreported crimes didn't show up in the statistics.

And then of course, halfway through the long hot summer, Fate decided to kick him in the balls yet again. And via that deadliest of mechanisms, a vindictive little old lady.

***

"I don't _believe_ it!" Lestrade announced, and didn't care if it made him sound like Victor Meldrew. "Someone's trying to get me given an ASBO? It's not for swearing, is it? Because if so they can fuck off!"

"No," said Sergeant Humphries calmly – she was a good sort, was Humphries. "The complainant, Mrs Rose Meadows, is alleging that you bring young men back to your flat at all hours of the night, and that this immoral behaviour is causing her alarm and distress."

"I'm not even living there most of the time any more. I'm mainly in Dulwich, half moved out of the flat."

"Mrs Meadows states that at the times when you are there, there is a string of young men coming round."

"Mrs Meadows," Lestrade replied, trying not to grind his teeth, because his dentist didn't like it, "is an interfering old so-and-so, who has it in for me ever since I proved that she was wrong about Asher Mendez stealing her purse, and that she'd just left it in her other handbag."

"Yes, but she has detailed records and photos of a number of men coming and going at your flat at peculiar times." Humphreys said. She began to lay out the evidence on the table in the interview room, as if this was an actual case. At least there wasn't a tape going yet, thought Lestrade; this was still the informal chat bit.

"God, who let someone like her loose with a zoom lens?" he retorted."Anyhow, there are squatters five doors down from me, and at the end of the street there's a bloke with a massive sound system and a terrible taste in dubstep. Why's she picking on me?"

"Are you saying that her information is inaccurate?"

"No, but I'm saying it's not what it seems. The blokes who keep on turning up on my doorstep are almost all my informants."

"You let them come to your flat?" That had taken Humphries aback.

"It's safer meeting them there than in public half the time. I know the escape routes, and they can't have their mates waiting round the back to collar me. And besides, you treat these guys decently, give them a cup of tea, a meal, just act like you think they're human beings, not the scum of the earth, and they'll give you stuff you'd never get otherwise."

"I see," said Humphreys. "So, if you'd care to look at these photos, can you confirm that these are simply your professional contacts?"

"Let me see. And yeah, I know, a lot of them do look like thugs, because that's what they are. But most of them are really pretty damn harmless." There were a certain percentage who weren't even much cop as informers, they'd just attached themselves to Lestrade, as someone who might conceivably give a shit if they lived or died. How had he ended up as agony uncle to a slice of Peckham's lowlife?

"Anyhow," he said, as he worked his way through the pile, "these are pictures of blokes coming to my door. It's not illegal to have visitors at night, it's not even that bloody antisocial."

"Mrs Meadows says it's disturbing her."

"Yeah, well she's obviously . . . disturbed."

Humphries produced another envelope.

"There are a few where you are seen holding the man concerned," she commented.

"2011, not illegal to do that. Let's see." He flicked through the next few photos. "Ronnie Smith can't walk straight when he's pissed, which is half the time. And Asif Kirmani was pretty out of it as well that night. I had to let him sleep off whatever he'd been taking in the bath before I could get any coherent information out of him. Oh, and the big black bloke in the dress-"

"Yes?"

"That's Henry Odinga, he was acting as a decoy for us in Peckham Rye Park. Brave sod, Henry. He broke a heel and twisted his ankle that evening, least I could do was put him up for the night."

"There's one final...encounter," said Humphries, looking slightly uncomfortable now. Lestrade looked down. Much worse quality shot, you couldn't tell that the two men in the picture were soaking wet. You could, however, make out that the tall, dark, thin man had his arm round Lestrade, and that Lestrade had his hand on the other man's arse. Oh, shit. And then the next one...

He had been necking Sherlock outside his own flat. And there was one of him gazing up at Sherlock like he was some infatuated schoolboy. What the fuck had he been thinking that night? Well, obviously, not a lot by that point. They'd already had sex in an alleyway, got soaked to the skin by a thunderstorm in the process, and were now proceeding back to Lestrade's flat ostensibly to dry out, but in fact to carry on the mayhem. Must have been the icing on Mrs Meadow's cake when she spotted that one. Made everything else look retrospectively dodgy.

No, that was wrong, wasn't it? Sequence wrong. This was back last spring, and it had been shot with a different camera, not nearly such a high spec one, he reckoned. So...

"So this is the first...incident, isn't it?" he said. "Which, yes, is what it looks like, me making out. So Mrs Meadows took offence at that, the old bigot, and has been trying to demonstrate ever since that I'm a sex-crazed poof?"

"The man in these pictures is not one of your informants, then?" says Humphries.

"No, that's-" Lestrade came to an abrupt halt. The picture quality was sufficiently poor that you might not recognise Sherlock if you didn't know him well. "A bloke I know, friendly with. Got a bit too friendly that night, but that's hardly a hanging offence, is it? Look, the whole thing is obviously ridiculous, isn't it? Nothing substantial, just one old woman who doesn't like me, and doesn't like gays. So why is anyone bothering with this?"

"I'm afraid that the allegation got red-flagged as soon as it was made," Humphries said. "I know it's ridiculous, and it _will_ be dismissed. But the Met daren't let even a stupid allegation about a senior officer go without it being properly investigated. They're too concerned someone's going to scream that there's been a cover-up."

"There is nothing here! One stupid bloody encounter, and then a lot of speculation."

"I promise, sir, it will be dealt with speedily and discreetly. We'll check what you say about the informers, confirm the man in drag is a decoy, and all that's left is a one-off bit of fooling around with your friend. I know it's embarrassing, but you're out to your super and your team already, aren't you? And no-one higher up is going to worry about that sort of photo now."

"So other people are going to see these photos?"

"As I'd said, it'll be very discreet, no-one outside the investigation and your immediate superior will see anything. We do know how to keep these matters under wraps, sir."

From ordinary people, maybe, thought Lestrade. I just happen to be married to a bloke who finds out everything about everyone, but has somehow managed to miss this so far. Who could recognise Sherlock in the dark a mile away, never mind in a slightly crappy photo. Who is really not going to be happy about this...

***

Lestrade had tried, ever since that night in April, to figure out why he'd done something as stupid as sleep with Sherlock. Other than the fact that he'd been wanting to do it for five years, and it had seemed a shame not to cross it off his to-do list. Because Sherlock had been in his face – no, actually breathing down his neck, and practically shoving himself into Lestrade's arse, and there had been Eighties music on, and everything had been hot and tense and unreal that night. And if Sherlock had decided to get seriously randy at last, why shouldn't Lestrade get the benefit rather than John Watson?

It was odd that he liked John, when it had been obvious from so early on that Sherlock was falling for him. He remembered how Sherlock had turned to John on the night of the drugs bust, and asked if he'd said something wrong about the Pink Lady's daughter. And then, a few hours later, told Lestrade that the cabbie's killer was a 'man of strong moral principles', without a hint of the normal sneer in his voice at a phrase like that. Somehow John Watson had started to do something to Sherlock, found a crack in the marble hardness of his personality. Lestrade had sensed that, probably even before Sherlock had. Something was happening that might make Sherlock, if not a good man, at least a better one.

He'd known Sherlock was in love with John – or whatever passed for love with Sherlock - and yet he'd let him come onto him the night of the stakeout. Sherlock had taken his years of teasing Lestrade one step further then, and they'd ended up having sex. In the one small part of his brain that hadn't been concentrating on Sherlock's pale, pale skin, and his wickedly clever tongue, and his long sensitive cock, Lestrade had let himself have hopes. Maybe Sherlock was looking for some kind of closeness to people now, and once they'd slept together, he'd know that part of what he wanted was Lestrade. In his bed, if not his heart.

He'd spent five years imagining that if he could just shag Sherlock senseless it would magically change everything between them. Pretty well managed the shagging senseless, in fact, on the night of the thunderstorm, because Sherlock might be younger, but Lestrade knew more dirty tricks in the bedroom. And then he'd woken up in his flat the next morning to find nothing left of Sherlock but a note saying: _Thanks for the data. SH_. Well, OK, that did pretty much change things, he supposed. It showed him once and for all that he'd wasted those years, that not even Sherlock's gorgeous body could make up enough for the shitty personality. He wished he could have worked that out a long time ago, but he supposed he was a slow learner.

He could tell Mycroft honestly that he had Sherlock out of his system. That, yes, he had slept with him, but that was before he'd got involved with Mycroft. No use talking about the potency of Eighties music (he suspected Mycroft had spent the whole of the Eighties turned to Radio 3), but he could say: I made a mistake, I thought I wanted him, and I found I didn't. People, ordinary people, make mistakes like that. Sleep with people they shouldn't do, think something will work out, find it doesn't. And then he could look Mycroft in the eye and tell him the honest to God truth: It's you I love, and not him. I don't care about bloody Sherlock, it's you I want to be with.

***

But when the car had come that evening, and Anthea had taken him to Mycroft's office – his office, for Christ's sake - it hadn't worked like that. From the moment Mycroft had opened his mouth and said, in his snootiest voice: "There's something I think we need to discuss, Gregory", Lestrade’s hackles had gone up, and it had all rapidly gone downhill.

"My attention has been brought," Mycroft went on, like he was a sodding headmaster, "to certain photos of you and Sherlock." He had a pen in his hand and a manila file in front of him, and for one horrendous moment Lestrade thought he was going to produce the photos and start pointing out identifying details.

"Me with Sherlock outside my flat, last year. Yeah, seen them myself. And yes, it is what it looks like. We were going back to my place for a shag." No point in playing silly buggers here, pretending not to know what this was about. Get it out in the open, he thought, deal with it.

"You thought _he_ was able to cope with the rigours of Peckham, did you?" said Mycroft coldly.

"What the...it doesn't matter where it was. It was a once-off, it was before I got involved with you, it is ended. Over and done with."

"Oh, yes," Mycroft said, his knuckles whitening as he fiddled with his pen. "I'm quite sure it's over, that Sherlock ended it when he became...involved with John. The question is whether you wanted it to end?"

Sod it, thought Lestrade, as it suddenly slid into focus. That was why Sherlock had done it, wasn't it? He'd been trying to get somewhere with John, and he'd decided to practice on Lestrade, or make John jealous, something sneaky like that, hadn't he? Not so much a quiet storm, as a perfect storm.

"I didn't want to take it any further either," he protested. "Because it wasn't going anywhere, and I finally realised that." Shit, he thought, really not the right thing to say. "Look, if there had been anything serious happening, don't you think you'd have it on your bloody files already?"

"There was a suggestion made by some of my subordinates that you were interested in Sherlock. I had presumed that they were wrong." Mycroft's voice was stiff and precise, but Lestrade found himself wondering if you could actually snap a pen with your bare hands. Or stab someone with one.

"What do you want me to say?" he demanded. "Yes, I fancied Sherlock, slept with him. And it was a fucking stupid mistake, and I'm sorry."

"There's no need to apologise," said Mycroft. "Your behaviour is entirely understandable. It's just that under the circumstances, I need to re-evaluate my own position."

That was when he'd lost it, Lestrade realised afterwards, as he walked towards the bus stop. Because there was no point in yelling "It's you I want to be with" if you followed it up with "you pompous prat". Though it probably wouldn't have mattered what he'd said, come to think of it. Mycroft wouldn't have listened anyhow. He'd seen it sometimes in his own team, when they'd been on a case. You _knew_ what had happened, that someone was guilty, and it didn't matter if the evidence fitted or not. But how the fuck could a brilliant man like Mycroft be so stupid?

Obvious answer – because he was a Holmes. Thirty-plus years of sibling rivalry were all somehow getting screwed up into this concentrated lump of Mycroft's misery. Tearing up the relationship from some misguided belief that he was just a consolation prize for Lestrade. Why the fuck had he got involved with such an oversensitive idiot? Sherlock might be an idiot, but at least you could hardly call him oversensitive...Oh, fuck. He was not going there. He was going home, he was going to have a shower, try and unwind, then work out what to do next.

Except when he thought 'home', he realised, what he actually meant, what he wanted, was his own flat in Peckham, not Mycroft's house a few miles, and a social divide away in Dulwich. Mycroft's place was far nicer, but it was still Mycroft's, even if half of Lestrade's stuff was now there. He still went back to his old flat most weeks at some point, pick up the post, see what was going on. He'd just stay there the night this time, that was all. While he got his head together. Get back to where he belonged, sort himself out.

Of course when he got home, he found that the day's street music wasn't Skream, or whatever his name was, but Kylie, her voice echoing from an open window nearby:

 _All the lovers, that have gone before,  
They don't compare to you_

 

Bet you Mozart didn't put it that neatly, Lestrade thought. Maybe if he had, it might have taught sodding Mycroft something. OK, get in, have a beer, then a shower, because it had been a long, tough, bloody awful day.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after the night before is never good, especially, when it's the morning after Mycroft finds out about Lestrade and Sherlock having slept together.

The headache Lestrade felt the next day was not improved by going into work and finding John there, even though the doctor had brought along a few industrial grade painkillers.

"Did I text you last night?" he asked, when he felt up to doing more than grunting. "Or do you just turn up randomly in people's offices now with hangover cures?"

"Sherlock texted _you_ , asking if you had any interesting cases. You said to stop bothering him, because you'd started drinking and you weren't planning to stop any time soon." John smiled. "Probably a rash thing to say."

"He didn't come round, did he? I mean, even if I'd been drinking, surely I couldn't have forgotten Sherlock turning up."

"No, but he was texting you every quarter of an hour to see what replies he would get. Did you realise that you're still able to spell swear words perfectly when you're drunk, or have you just got some really peculiar predictive text function?"

That bit was coming back now. It hadn't seem to matter to him last night that it was Sherlock he was texting, just that someone was out there listening, someone who knew about Mycroft, who he could tell things to without breaching fifteen different sections of the Official Secrets Act. And better to text Sherlock when drunk than Mycroft.

"How embarrassing was I?"

"Sentimental and incoherent, but I don't mean that in a bad way. Only I gathered...you'd had what Mrs Hudson would call a domestic with Mycroft. Wondered if you were OK?"

"Screwed myself up properly this time. Mycroft found out I'd slept with Sherlock." Oh shit, he thought, as he heard John gasp. Not the best way to tell someone who'd probably been trained to kill with his bare hands. He had to start concentrating very hard indeed.

"When?" said John, with his chin going up, and a note in his voice that said: _This is a warning shot_.

"Before you and Sherlock got together," he replied, as confidently as he could, hoping that was right. Surely not even Sherlock would have been that stupid...

"What was he playing at?"

"No sodding idea," said Lestrade, and that bit he could make sound convincing. "We were out on a stakeout one spring" - _make sure you don't say which one_ \- "Horrible sticky night, thunderstorm brewing, he just decided to mess with my mind. Oh, and with my body, obviously."

"Sherlock goes nuts in the heat," John said more calmly.

"He's always nuts."

"More nuts. Last summer he went round shirtless at 221B first thing in the morning, when I had an early shift on. I kept on having to walk to work, because if I'd gone on the Tube with the hard-on I was left with, I'd probably have been arrested. And a thunderstorm as well. The electricity, or the air pressure does something to him. Like horses, or do I mean cows?" John always talked particular bollocks when he was trying to calm himself down, Lestrade knew that by now.

"I remember-" said Lestrade, and stopped abruptly. Not a good move to tell John that he'd once found Sherlock sitting on top of a filing cabinet in Lestrade's office wearing nothing but his underpants, because he was overheating from ecstasy. "Oh, God, it doesn't matter. I've had more than enough of his stupid stunts. Glad you're the one trying to sort him out now, not me. I'm a lot better off with Mycroft."

"Definitely," said John. "It's OK, Greg, it's fine, we're fine." And then the smile left his face, and he said soberly: "Just remember what happens if you ever touch Sherlock again."

"You break my neck?" he replied, trying to keep it a joke.

"No," said John, "You get to keep him next time."

Lestrade wasn't sure how white he'd gone, but from John's abrupt crack of laughter, he must have looked pretty damn horrified.

"Don't do that to me, John," he groaned. "I'm not up to it this morning. You're both mad bastards, you and Sherlock, you know that? You belong together."

"Yeah, well, so do you and Mycroft. If there's anything I can do to help-"

"Not sure what to do yet. I just know I can't force it," said Lestrade. "I mean, maybe I could talk him round, but it'd still be there, the way it always is. This stupid bloody obsession that no-one could prefer him to Sherlock."

"Can't help you on that," John replied, folding his arms, still smiling. "I was straight before Sherlock came along, and I still fell for him. Not surprising you couldn't resist him."

"I'm over him," said Lestrade, and his tone must have convinced John. He wished Mycroft was so easy to convince. "And...thanks for the tablets, and for not beating me to a pulp. I owe you one."

***

It was funny, Lestrade thought, as he sat and failed to fill in last month's statistical returns, how the memory of Filing Cabinet Sherlock no long seemed arousing. He'd fantasised so much about that day afterwards – hadn't done anything at the time, obviously, wouldn't have taken advantage of Sherlock when he was high. But now he wondered what the hell he'd been thinking about. Why he'd spent five years – five sodding years – lusting after a brilliant, fucked-up, posh boy, hoping, waiting, not just to get into Sherlock's pants, but for him to grow up. And why he hadn't done anything for so long about the brilliant, fucked-up, posh man who'd come into his life along with Sherlock.

Sherlock was dazzling, of course, and Mycroft wasn't. Sherlock had cheekbones and amazing eyes, and a wicked temper, and so everyone – Lestrade included – had thought he was romantic and sensitive. And so he hadn't noticed, or at least had noticed far, far too late, that it was Mycroft who was the one who really cared about things, beneath the layers and layers of waistcoats, and manipulation, and irony. Who worried about people – even bloody Sherlock – in between treating them like the chess pieces his job demanded. Of course Mycroft was fucked up - it came with his background and the job - but at least he tried to be an adult about it. Didn't think that being a genius gave him a 'Get Out of Humanity Free' card, the way Sherlock did.

Lestrade had wondered occasionally if Mycroft was interested, so why hadn't he made a move about three years sooner? OK, he'd been distracted by Sherlock, and it had been off-putting to think that if he was reading Mycroft's signals wrong he could end up his career in the obscurer reaches of Cornwall, or the British Transport Police. But more than that, he'd stupidly thought if Mycroft was interested, _he'd_ do something. Whereas it turned out that he might be able to organise a coup in Africa, but not asking a middle-aged copper out for a date. Then Mycroft's PA, Anthea, had either made the biggest organisational cock-up of her life, or possibly her most successful intervention, and Lestrade had been invited out to dinner with Mycroft to discuss the Pink Lady case.

***

It had been pleasant enough for the first twenty minutes or so – the restaurant was a good, but unflashy Indian place, and Lestrade felt instantly at home. Then Mycroft had looked up from the poppadom he was crumbling into ever smaller pieces and said, abruptly:

"You know who shot Jefferson Hope, the serial killer?"

"Officially, no," he replied. "Unofficially, yes. And that's the way it's going to stay."

"I was informed that the Met were reconsidering opening the case."

"Not that I've heard. And the crime scene investigation unfortunately got hashed up. Some pillock misplaced the bullet, which was the only useful bit of evidence we had. No possibility of matching it with any gun that might happen to be discovered."

"Glad to hear that, Detective Inspector."

"Call me Greg," he replied. "Because I'm going to say that I'm off-duty at the moment, and that yes, I will do my best to keep John Watson out of jail in future as well."

"That's good," said Mycroft, smiling, "I understood from Anthea that you might be difficult on this matter. Need some...persuasion."

 _What the fuck_ , thought Lestrade, his temper flaring.

"I don't take bribes," he said, trying to remember to keep his voice down. "And I'll go fifty-fifty on this meal if it's intended as 'persuasion'. In fact, if this is just about ensuring I keep my mouth shut, you've got my word now, operation's been successful. Understood?"

There was an expression on Mycroft's face that you'd call gobsmacked, if it weren’t Mycroft.

"I...I'm sorry," he said at last, and he actually sounded sincere. "My dear Greg, I didn't mean this meal as an insult...or a bribe in any way. I simply...Anthea said you wanted to meet me privately about this matter, so I thought this would be the most civilised way to achieve it, rather than sitting on some dreary bench in Russell Square."

"Well, I certainly don't want to talk about John Watson and the cabbie," Lestrade said, "and it sounds like you don't either. Don't know how Anthea got her wires crossed on this one."

Mycroft was looking confused now. Never realised he had quite such a wide range of expressions before. OK, down to him to sort things out.

"Well," he said, "given we've got this far, and I'm bloody starving, shall we go fifty-fifty on the meal and have it anyhow? Because I'm dying for a decent chicken jalfrezi."

"What's that like? Is that quite hot?" said Mycroft, and it abruptly registered that Mycroft probably wasn't used to curry houses.

"If you want something mild, the lamb pasanda's a good bet, and we can ask for a jug of water as well. I like the spicy stuff myself, but it's not a competition."

"If you'd like to order, that would be wonderful, Greg. I'd gathered you're something of a curry aficionado."

"That's in my file as well, is it?" said Lestrade. "Anything that isn't in there that you want to know?"

"You lead an...interesting life. I mean, I know about the crimes you've solved, but I can never quite imagine what it's like to be a policeman. It's all so..." Mycroft's voice faded away.

"Mundane? Ridiculous? Unimaginative?"

"Impressive, I was going to say, actually. Facing danger, dealing with criminals face-to-face. It can't be easy. I...not the sort of thing I could do."

"You get used to it," Lestrade said. "And it's very satisfying, sometimes, when it works. All seems worth it, being a copper, then."

"So tell me," Mycroft said, "why did you decide to become a detective?"

***

It had been a bit like an ant coming face to face to David Attenborough, Lestrade thought afterwards. That was what was really thrilling about the Holmeses, beyond any physical attraction. The way they could focus on you, make you the centre of their universe, that you could sense those brilliant minds filling up with data about you. Of course, with Sherlock, that was only for a few moments, before he told you were an idiot, but it still always gave him a kick. The fact that someone so intelligent, so astounding, thought you mattered. And Mycroft wasn't being like Sherlock, didn't just want to confirm a few hypotheses before slagging him off and disappearing. Mycroft tonight was greedy for information, wanted to understand Lestrade.

He was naturally greedy about food, as well, wasn't he, Lestrade thought. There was something ridiculous and yet impressive about the way that Mycroft ate his naan bread so slowly, didn't gobble it down the way he clearly wanted to. He might not go for curry, but he looked like a man who could eat the restaurant out of bread if he got the chance. Wonder what else he desperately wants and won't admit to? Maybe time to find out, he decided, when Mycroft doggedly refused the proffered dessert menu.

"The only downside of Indian places is you can never get a decent coffee," Lestrade said cheerily. "Got some reasonable stuff at my place, but it's a bit of a way out, and I'm not sure that Peckham's quite your cup of tea, as it were. Maybe we could find somewhere else that's open?"

"I have some rather good coffee myself," said Mycroft, "if you'd like to come back to my house. It's not really much out of your way – I live in Dulwich."

"Two stations down the line from me, and a million miles. Sounds good."

"I'll have a car come round and pick us up. I find public transport rather uncivilised, especially in the evenings."

"I'm used to it by now," Lestrade replied truthfully, and then, suddenly inspired, went on: "Doesn't seem quite right if I've not got some bloke invading my personal space, so close I can smell the sweat on him. Or you're in the tube, and it comes to a stop somewhere and you're stuck down there for ten minutes, can't move an inch for someone's body pressed against yours."

Mycroft was possibly never going to be able to face the underground again, after this, he reckoned, but it hardly seemed to matter, because the thought of a body pressed up against Lestrade's was clearly firing up some long dormant parts of his brain. In fact, he looked like a man who'd just realised that Lestrade was not that bothered about the coffee. That what Mycroft really wanted was on offer, if he'd just take it. The way he was shifting awkwardly in his chair...

"I don't know-," said Mycroft abruptly, and then the sentence seemed to die in this throat. _You don't know if you want to do this_ , Lestrade supplied, _and if you have to time to think about it, you may back down. Better not give you a chance to second-guess yourself_.

He smiled, and stretched slightly in his chair, and said, as casually as he could: "Is there CCTV coverage of the front of restaurant? And how long till the car comes?"

Mycroft's eyes were wide now. _Lust? Fear? Probably both_. And his voice was breathy, as he replied: "There's a CCTV camera at the front, but there's also a way out through the kitchens into an unwatched alleyway that connects onto Mortimer Street." He paused, and then added, slightly more calmly: "I always make sure I know an escape route from any venue I frequent."

"If you want to escape this time, we go out the front," said Lestrade. "Otherwise, car in ten minutes, say, and before that we go round the back?" This was probably a bloody stupid idea, but he suspected things were either going to happen now or not at all. He also hadn't actually intended the innuendo about 'the back'. Not a bad move, though.

"Excellent idea. Please follow me, then," said Mycroft, as he stood up, trying to sound like he was still in control. Hadn't planned this scenario, had he, Lestrade thought, as he hurried after Mycroft's rapidly disappearing figure. Nor had he, but he was used to thinking on his feet. Or even on his knees. Terrible for the suit, of course, but now was not a time to worry about that.

They got outside, and Mycroft hesitated, looking round at the dingy alleyway. Might bolt even now, thought Lestrade, so he guided him rapidly back against a wall, and then reached down for Mycroft's belt. Mycroft just stood there, as if he wasn't quite sure what was going on, but when Lestrade started unzipping Mycroft's trousers, Mycroft's hands were suddenly batting his away. _Oh shit_ , Lestrade thought, and then realised that it was just that Mycroft was being extremely cautious with the rather sizeable erection he was now revealing. He gave one reassuring pat to Mycroft's hip, and then got down on his knees, as Mycroft pulled his silk boxers down. Mycroft hadn't remembered to phone for the car, but this probably wasn't going to take ten minutes anyhow...

***

Mycroft came silently, but his hands were scrabbling against the bricks in a way that must have hurt him. And he hung against the wall afterwards, as if was all that was keeping him up. Lestrade got up slowly, his knees starting to hurt as the adrenaline wore off. _Too old for this_ , he thought.

"Do you want to call the car?" he said. "You look like you need someone to take you home." He probably had blown it now, he thought, in every sense, but God, Mycroft wasn't going to forget this in a hurry, and nor was he. And then he added, because he suspected Mycroft always needed an escape route : "I can get the bus back to Peckham, if you want."

"Can I make it quite clear," said Mycroft, and despite the fact that he still had his trousers and pants at half-mast, _that_ voice was somehow back, and the hand that reached out to take Lestrade's wrist was surprisingly firm, "that we have not yet finished with this matter, Gregory Lestrade."

***

They did actually get back to Dulwich in the end, and Lestrade even got some of Mycroft's coffee, though only on the morning after. And yes, it was good stuff, smoother and spicier than anything he was used to. Mycroft leant by the kitchen counter, watching him drink. He didn't look like the man who had fucked Lestrade so desperately last night. In fact, he didn't look like a man who knew what fucking involved. And given that Lestrade had to go on duty in an hour, it was not helpful to think too much about that other side of Mycroft. Stick to something safer.

"I could get to like this coffee. Where did you get it from?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't really think you need to know that," Mycroft said, smiling benevolently at him.

Shit, he thought. Start a fight over this and he'd look ridiculous. Let it go and he worried he'd be agreeing to all of Mycroft's evasiveness. That he'd be automatically shut out of all but the tiny fraction of his life that Mycroft couldn't quite keep under control. But this time, just being in someone's bed wasn't going to be enough for him.

"All right," he said as calmly as he could. "If it's top secret coffee, that's fair enough. But for future reference," – he watched Mycroft register that – "you need to decide if you can trust me. OK?"

"I, I'm sorry," said Mycroft. "Bad habit of mine, I'm afraid. Rather comes with the job."

"I know," he replied, and then went on doggedly. "There's always going to be stuff you can't tell me, I realise that. But I'm used to keeping quiet about what I hear, a copper learns a lot of people's secrets."

"It's not that I don't trust you," said Mycroft. "It's just...one learns to say nothing, because even scraps of information can be used to build up a bigger picture."

"So that anything you do or say can let people deduce things. Some people, maybe. I can't work out your entire life history based on whether your coffee's from Jamaica or Brazil."

"Dominican Republic, as it happens," Mycroft said, and the smile this time had a real warmth behind it. "There's a little shop I know near Smithfield's does that, and a lot of other rather distinctive beans. Maybe we should have a tasting session there some day."

"Sounds good," Lestrade said. "I'm free on Saturday, well, provided not too many people die hideously before then. If that's OK with you?"

"It sounds ideal, Greg. I'm confident I can rearrange things to accommodate that. In fact... maybe I could take the whole weekend off. It's a been a while since I've done that, but one doesn't want to be rushed on these occasions, does one?"

"I'm sure you can find something to do with the rest of your weekend," said Lestrade, smiling back at him. "Maybe just take it easy. Have a lie-in and spend Sunday morning in bed."

"That sounds wonderful."

***

The relationship developed quickly after that. You could say too quickly, or you could say that after five years of acquaintance, it was about time they got their act together. They were grown men, they knew what they wanted. What Mycroft wanted, it was soon clear, was things settled, respectable. As far as Lestrade was concerned, what a civil partnership mostly meant was extra paperwork and having Elvira as a mother-in-law, neither of which gave him an enormous thrill. But if it made Mycroft happy it was worth it. And Mycroft was happy – or at least as happy as a man who had to keep the world safe for Radio 4 listeners could be.

But it was harder than Lestrade expected being married to Mycroft. More work. Mycroft wasn't used to living with someone and it showed. Nothing like as bad as it would be living with Sherlock, of course. All the inhabitants of Baker Street should demand danger money, what with the noise, and the explosions, and Sherlock's tendency to grab things from random passers-by. But Mycroft and Lestrade still managed a few silly flare-ups over piles of paperwork left around, and what constituted an adequate evening meal. The sort of stuff that two tired and ratty men could find hard to sort out. There were times when it was useful that Lestrade still had the Peckham flat as a bolthole – gave Mycroft a bit of space, as much as anything, poor sod.

Still, it was doable. There was a reason that Lestrade had ended up with Anderson and Donovan and half the awkward squad on his team. And that Sherlock had fixed on working with him, rather than Gregson, or Jones, or Frost. Because he could cope with the uncooperative, and the aggrieved and the anti-social (or in Sherlock's case all three), get something positive out of them. And he'd learned how to handle Mycroft over the years he'd known him. The need for calm efficiency, and that you didn't argue with one of Mycroft's plans unless you had a much better suggestion of your own. Of course, when it came to sex, Lestrade often had much better suggestions, and it was far more enjoyable handling Mycroft in that way. Made up for a lot of Mycroft's starchiness on duty sometimes, when you knew what he'd let you do to him after hours.

That was one of the good bits that kept them together when things got bumpy. He should have realised that life with any member of the Holmes family wasn't going to be straightforward. They seemed to attract chaos, bizarre things happening. As did Mycroft's job. Mycroft's life, really, was a bit like that old joke about the swan: all serenity at the top, and a lot of frantic paddling underneath. Not to mention the beady eyes, the silence, and the occasional nasty reaction if you got too close. Though at least Lestrade was fairly confident that Mycroft couldn't break your arm with a single blow of his wing.

They got through things. Like the first Christmas dinner – though admittedly Lestrade had been sneaky then. Entertained Elvira with true crime stories – well, mostly true - and left John to referee Mycroft versus Sherlock round 583. Not a pretty sight, the relationship between the brothers – he'd never understood why they were incapable of leaving each other alone. God, he'd been an idiot to wander into the middle of that one.

***

Good job they didn't have any cases on at the moment that required actual brainpower, he concluded by the afternoon, given he couldn't think coherently about anything . But then eighty percent of murders, at least, were done by the usual suspects. He didn't need to get Sherlock involved that often. Maybe not as often as he'd used to do.

He'd been stupid, of course, but it was all in the past. The whole thing with Sherlock had just evaporated – one of these things you look back on and think: _why?_ Like some particularly dodgy outfit you once wore, or imagining that smoking was cool. Mycroft must know that there hadn't been anything serious between them. He'd have had a night to sleep on it, would have realised he was over-reacting. If he didn't call Lestrade at work, he'd phone him himself this evening, talk to him, get things straightened out. Maybe even a quick bit of sex to seal the deal. He probably had the stamina for that, if he took enough painkillers and managed to eat something.

After all, he thought, if he'd put up with the stuff about David Holmes, Mycroft could get over a nasty surprise or two about Lestrade and Sherlock. Couldn’t he?

***

Lestrade tried to remember to call him 'David Holmes' even in his mind, now, and not 'Mycroft's idiot husband'. Not David's fault that he was an idiot, he had to admit. He'd definitely been a bigger idiot at David's age. In fact, there should probably be a statute of limitations on anything anybody did before they were twenty-five. All David, the poor bastard, had done, after all, was swear undying devotion to Mycroft, piss off his entire family in the process, and then get himself messily and prematurely killed.

Killed before he and Mycroft had got used to being with one another. Which was maybe half the reason that while Mycroft had desperately wanted to marry Lestrade, he still found the being married side a bit difficult. After all, he and David had only really lived together a year or so, before David had disappeared off to the middle of Africa with the Foreign Office. Hard to think of a place that would have appealed to Mycroft less than Chad - Alaska or Guatemala maybe, not much else. You could deduce a lot about a marriage from that kind of behaviour, though probably better to keep your deductions to yourself.

He'd have minded less about David if he'd had more advance warning, if he hadn't had to deduce so much of what happened. He'd been pretty pissed off when he'd had to learn about Mycroft having been married before from Elvira. And then she'd said the one thing that had brought him up short. That David hadn't just died, but been killed, murdered. And it was like the way that sometimes a case would snap together in your mind, and you could see immediately how the pieces fitted together. Lestrade might know a lot less about most things than Mycroft, but he knew a hell of a lot about murder. And especially how it affected the victim's family.

Some people never got beyond that. You saw it sometimes on the cold cases, that their lives had just stopped at that moment ten, twenty, forty years back when their brother, lover, child had been killed. Even with the ones who did cope, there was always a terrible mess left behind. Regrets, guilt, anger – couldn't say goodbye, their fault for being in the wrong place, your fault for not being there. The urge to punish someone, anyone, to destroy as you'd been destroyed.

Lestrade suspected that Mycroft had tracked down the terrorists and had his revenge, and thought the thing was over, could be filed away. Sealed himself off from that bit of his past. Fair enough in many ways, but he should still have told Lestrade something about it, warned him about it. Not just left it and left it, even when David Smith's sister had come out of the woodwork, twenty years on, wanting contact.

It hadn't been Mycroft's finest hour, had it? That odd, stubborn inability to forgive, the revelation that he was still bearing a grudge against Melissa Smith after all these years. They'd had a hell of a row about that angle, even as Lestrade had carefully backed off the 'Don't you think you should have mentioned the previous marriage?' bit. Because yes, that was fucking infuriating, but you couldn't pick a Holmes up on every way in which they'd screwed you around, and withheld information, there weren't enough hours in the day.

But Melissa Smith was a priority, had to be dealt with, and Lestrade had ended up pushing the nuclear button on that one. If Mycroft wouldn't go and meet her at Wakehurst Place, show her where David's ashes were scattered, Lestrade would.

"We owe her that," he'd said, and hoped that Mycroft would clock the 'we' bit. And Mycroft, pulling out some fragment of correct British breeding from deep within his soul, had said, almost smoothly: "No, you're right, I should go myself. I will go, Gregory, Greg. But please...it would be easier without you there."

Lestrade had wondered then whether he'd made the biggest mistake of his life. Sent Mycroft over the top into some emotional battle zone he couldn't cope with. He'd at least managed to get John to go along with Mycroft, on the grounds that you needed someone around who was a fluent Holmes-English translator, and was used to coping with repressed men having emotional crises.

***

Mycroft had come home after the day in Sussex with a puffiness about his eyelids that suggested he'd been crying, and a look in his eyes that told Lestrade he'd better not mention the fact. But the next day, he'd said, in an almost normal tone of voice, that he and Melissa were going to sponsor a tree in the garden in memory of David. And Lestrade had replied that if Mycroft ever wanted him to come down to Wakehurst Place with him he could. Best way he could think of to say: _I'm not frightened of the past, we're in this thing together_. Hadn't known what else to say, but then it wasn't as if Mycroft found it hard to work out things about him. He was bloody transparent most of the time.

Except Mycroft apparently had never worked out that Lestrade had fancied Sherlock, had slept with him, which in some ways was almost as big a deal as sodding David, or at least would be to Mycroft. Still, they'd got this far, they could work things out...

***

A month on, he wondered if the stalemate was ever going to end. He'd tried to talk to Mycroft and got nowhere. Phoned and been told there was nothing to discuss. Gone round to the house and had a stand-up row. Well, a row on his side. Mycroft just sitting there like a bloody upper-class iceberg, repeating 'the matter is closed' like a mantra. He'd stormed off in the end, and now whenever he phoned, he just got the answer machine. Left stupid-sounding messages, not surprising he hadn't got a reply.

Mycroft wasn't actually doing anything. Hadn't insisted Lestrade move out of the house - perhaps because he'd officially never moved in. Hadn't asked for a separation or a divorce. Hadn't found anyone else. Just withdrawn, refused any involvement, any contact. It was like the thing with Melissa Smith all over again, Lestrade thought. Hoped to God it didn't take twenty years for Mycroft to unthaw again.

It was the sodding Service for you, he decided, eventually. Things go wrong, you abort the mission, deny anything ever happened, bury the bodies. Literally, in Mycroft's case. Not like police work, where you had to live with your mistakes, realise they weren't the end of the world. Which meant that once he'd had a week or two of being royally pissed-off with Sherlock, for having accidentally bust up his marriage, and being only marginally repentant about the fact, he'd been back to working with the bastard. Had to.

He found it odd, sometimes, how much the Met was like the scene he'd once been on. Tight-knit community, outsiders didn't understand you, even hated you, simply for what you were. So you pulled together, because you had to. And you learned how to cope with being around the people who'd previously screwed you, metaphorically or actually. Get on with people, even if part of you would secretly like to push them over a cliff. Life went on, the work went on. Even if his marriage didn't.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft may have frozen out Lestrade, but a change in the weather might help...

It was the first week of November, coming up to their anniversary – sod it, not thinking about that, how bloody stubborn could any man be? And then the whole of London went completely haywire. A freak cold snap – except freak weather was normal these days – and several inches of snow, and everything stopped working. But Lestrade smiled for the first time in ages, when he woke up on Tuesday morning to a rapidly whitening world. Then he went and dug his winter gear out of the back of the wardrobe, because he was wise to this by now.

He might look like Scott of the Bloody Antarctic by the time he had all his layers on, especially with the hiking poles and the balaclava, but while everyone else was moaning about the trains and the buses, or simply giving up and going back to bed, he just set off and walked to work. Hardly anyone in when he got there, of course, and all the criminals were taking time off as well, or busy throwing snowballs with stones in. So he got maximum brownie points for turning up, and a chance to sort things out peacefully. He ended up kipping at the Yard – easier than walking home – and by Wednesday afternoon he had all the 2010 files properly cleared away. A couple more days like this, and he might even be up to date, and Personnel would have to find someone else to harass. Then he got a phone call from John.

***

"I can barely hear you," Lestrade said. "Where are you, the moon?"

"Just outside Bournemouth station."

"Practically the same thing. No wonder the signal's lousy. But what are you doing in Bournemouth, anyhow?"

"Trying to get out of it," John said wearily. "Came down to see my godmother, she's in a home here. I was supposed to come back last night, but the trains are completely screwed up with the snow."

"It'll be worse when you get back to London," Lestrade replied. "But if you get as far as Scotland Yard, I can give you a cuppa."

"Thanks. Look, can you do me a favour?"

"Yeah, what is it?"

"I've been texting and phoning Sherlock and he's not replying. Do you think you could check he's OK?"

"I'll send someone round," said Lestrade. There must be someone in uniform branch who was actually on duty today.

"Could you...could you go yourself, Greg?" It wasn't just the poor line making John sound odd, he suddenly realised. "Only Mrs Hudson's not answering either. She said she was going to be away some of this week. I just want to make sure Sherlock's not doing anything stupid."

"OK, I'll get onto it," he said, because it had finally clicked. John was worried that if Sherlock was on his own for too long, snowed-in perhaps, bored, he might start doing drugs again. Unlikely, Lestrade thought, but John was a bit paranoid about Sherlock and drugs, always had been.

So he wrapped himself up, and headed off, through the eerily quiet streets. Still snowing a bit, all the pavements turning to solid ice, of course, even though they were supposed to be gritted, so it tookhim far longer than normal, but he made it to 221B eventually. He got the spare key to the flat from Speedy's and headed up. Opened the door - and there was Sherlock collapsed in a heap on the living room carpet.

He'd remembered his training. A moment to make sure there was no-one else in the flat. Another to check that there were no fumes – no, windows open, leave the door open as well. Then a rapid assessment of Sherlock. Pulse weak but there, breathing, no sign of blood, even paler than normal, what had the idiot taken now? He shook him, and Sherlock opened his eyes fractionally.

"What have you had?" he demanded, and then, as Sherlock stared at him glassily, yelled: "Tell me!"

"Nothing," Sherlock half grunted. He was shaking, no, shivering, and his breath came out in little pants. Little pants of vapour. God, Lestrade should have realised it before, it was just he had all those layers on, and he'd been walking. It was freezing in the flat – boiler must have packed up again – and Sherlock was just in a T-shirt and thin trousers, no jumper, no socks. With the fucking windows open. Lestrade punched in John's number on his phone.

"I'm at 221B. Can you get hypothermia indoors?" he demanded, when he finally managed to get through.

"What the-" A few strangled noises followed, and Lestrade could almost hear John trying to delete the swear words from his reply. "It can happen with elderly patients. I'm not sure how a normal, healthy, adult could...OK, this is Sherlock we're talking about. Symptoms are...shivering, slow breathing, confusion, skin cold and pale-"

"Sounds about right."

"The bloody idiot," John yelled, and then some confused murmurings and a lot of static followed.

"You still there?" Lestrade demanded. "Can you hear me?"

"Just. Is Sherlock conscious?"

"Sort of."

"Probably only moderate hypothermia then."

"Do I need to get him to hospital?"

"They'll be snowed under," John replied. "Sorry, pun not intended. But they'll be frantic and you know what Sherlock's like in hospitals. If he's conscious and still shivering, you can probably sort it out yourself. If he stops shivering suddenly, that's the time to panic, means his body's shutting down."

"What do I need to do?"

"Gentle warming: no hot baths, no alcohol. Warm drinks, chocolate or sweets if there's any, dry clothes, blankets, body heat. If he-" The phone went dead, and several goes at reconnection were fruitless. Probably the wrong kind of snow for mobiles, Lestrade thought.

"OK, Sherlock," he announced. "John says you'll live, so let's get you some tea."

"Don't want any," Sherlock replied. "Go away. I'm fine, I'm just thinking."

"You're bloody freezing to death. Right, then come upstairs and get into bed. I'll give you a hand."

It was a nightmare getting Sherlock up the stairs, his legs didn't seem to be working properly, and he was as uncooperative as usual. As if he secretly wanted to find an implausibly stupid way of dying. Well, not going to happen today. Lestrade half-dragged him onto his bed and started to pile blankets and duvets on top of him. It was freezingin here as well, though, not sure it was going to be enough.

"Stay here," he said, as if Sherlock was going to go anywhere, raced back downstairs and found Sherlock's coat, scarf and a packet of Maltesers. He somehow managed to get the coat onto Sherlock, who was curled up in a shivering ball, and still a lot less responsive than Lestrade would like. Then he shoved a few Maltesers into Sherlock's protesting mouth, and wrapped the scarf round Sherlock's face to discourage him from spitting them out. Sherlock was still bloody shaking, despite all the blankets. Maybe he did need to get him to hospital. Any other options first, though?

Oh yes, of course. Body heat. Bloody stupid, but might help a bit. And if he was going to stay here, make sure Sherlock was OK, he needed to keep warm himself. He was starting to cool down rapidly now he wasn't moving around. He crawled under the pile of blankets and wrapped himself round Sherlock. It was deeply weird. In fact it soundedlike a bloody kid's riddle, Lestrade thought. What's freezing and shaking and bony? Except the answer wasn't that funny: an undernourished detective with hypothermia. A late but plucky contender for Idiot of the Year.

He wonderedif Sherlock was starting to warm up, or if it was just that his own body was getting so cold he didn't notice. How the fuck had Sherlock managed to get 221B so cold, anyhow? Had he somehow reversed the boiler, so it was now sucking heat out of the room? Also wasn't sure if he was supposed to talk to Sherlock, make sure he didn't lose consciousness. Or was that just if they had to keep moving, so as to get back to base camp before the polar bears got them?

"You still alive?" he asked experimentally, and started prodding Sherlock when he didn't get a reply.

"Ow. Yes."

"Sodding disappointment," said Lestrade.

"Shut up. I'm trying to sleep."

"How do I know you're not unconscious then?"

"Prod me every half an hour, ask me what my name is."

"I'll give you a hint: you're Sherlock 'Fucking Idiot' Holmes. Tell you what, you eat some more Maltesers, I'll let you sleep."

"Don't like them."

"I don't like being here. That's not the point. Eat them. I'm not having you dying on my watch. John gets back, you can expire in his bloody arms."

Sherlock grumpily finished off the Maltesers. He wasn't shivering quite so much, which Lestrade hoped was a good sign. Then he curled himself up into an even tighter ball, as if attempting to ignore the fact that Lestrade was still snuggled up beside him, trying hard to crawl under at least some of the duvets.

Didn't bother him being ignored, Lestrade thought. Wasn't as if he had anything constructive to say to Sherlock anyhow. Just the eternal, unanswerable question: _Why is it so hard for you to stay out of trouble?_ Still, as long as he stayed here, and made sure Sherlock didn't wander off and freeze himself to death again, and prodded him every now and then, it'd be OK. John would turn up eventually – if the train didn't start moving soon, the mad bastard would probably yomp his way back from Bournemouth – and then he could head home. Because, God, he was tired. Too many sleepless nights recently, surprising how hard it was being back on his own in the flat. Not enough sharing body heat for him, either. Maybe he should just lie down in a snow drift himself...

Sod it, he was not going to get like that. He was not going to lie here thinking about Mycroft, and getting morbid. Life goes on. The phrase suddenly rang a very old bell. What was that song? _Oh, yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone_. He started singing it to himself, barely breathing the words, trying to work out what the damn thing was. _Little ditty about Jack and Diane_. God, was his imagination permanently stuck in the Eighties now? Well, never mind. He wouldn't disturb Sherlock if he sang quietly, and it'd help distract him, because it might be hours before John got back. Probably confirm that he had lousy taste in music, but far too late to worry about that.

He started off with ABBA, of course, and then started working his way through the weird mix of other songs that had somehow stuck indelibly in his mind.

 _London calling to the faraway towns..._

 _I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me..._

 _Summer loving, had me a blast..._

 _I never thought it would happen with me and a girl from Clapham..._

 _The silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload..._

 _Night and day, why is it so? That this longing for you follows wherever I go. In the roaring traffic's boom, in the silence of my lonely room, I think of you, night and day._ (Sod it, he was not singing that, he was singing something cheerful).

 _Looking from my window on the freshly fallen snow..._ (Cheerful. Warm)

 _We're all going on a summer holiday..._ (God, he really had no taste, had he?)

 _I am what I am..._ (Some good bits to the Eighties, after all)

***

Every now and then he prodded Sherlock, and asked him his name. But at some point he had a worrying suspicion that Sherlock prodded _him_ , and asked him his name. Hoped he'd given the right answer.

***

He woke up -no, he had not been asleep, he had merely been _concentrating_ – and wondered what the fuck he was doing. Oh, of course, preventing Sherlock dying. But Sherlock was still curled up, and probably not dying, just snoring very gently, and looking almost normal colour for Sherlock. So what had woken him up?

Footsteps on the stairs, someone coming into the flat. No idea what time it was, but John must finally have got back.

"We're upstairs," he yelled, and then sank back. God, why was he still so tired? It must be the cold getting to him, because the moment he stuck his nose out of the bedclothes, it was perishing. But now John was here, he could abandon the world's only consulting iceberg, get himself a nice hot cup of coffee, and go outside and warm up.

John was coming up the stairs, he could hear him now.He tried to force his tired eyes not to close, as the door opened.

"Thank God, you're here, you can take over-," he said and then stopped, as it finally registered -not John's compact figure in the doorway, but someone much taller and darker. Mycroft. He opened his mouth again, and managed to croak out:

"Not what it looks like."

"It looks," said Mycroft crisply, "as if you are attempting to prevent my brother from a premature death. If it's anything else, be sure to inform me later. I take it Sherlock is still alive?"

"Sod off, Mycroft," came a grumpy voice.

"Not only alive, but coherent," said Mycroft. He looked like a Russian spy, in a long, heavy coat and a furry hat."I think you can safely leave him for a little while now, Greg. If you want to come down, I'll make us some coffee. Do you want yours in a mug, Sherlock, or would it be easier just to pour it into you via a funnel? There are two of us now, so the latter is feasible."

***

There were a couple of men in parkas bringing large red boxes into the flat as Lestrade stumbled downstairs.

"Are hallucinations another sign of hypothermia?" he enquired.

"Industrial heaters," said Mycroft. "Unfortunately, MI5's boiler expert is stranded somewhere in Surbiton. It took a bit of pulling strings to get this equipment, but it's quite effective, and we won't have to stay here long anyway. A staged retreat is called for under the circumstances, but I need to make sure you're warm enough first. Can't have you succumb to hypothermia as well."

"I'm OK. More padding, better clothing. Not quite so damn stupid."

"You weren't answering your phone."

"I'm sorry, must have left it downstairs when I was taking Sherlock to bed." God, that sounded bad, didn't it? "I meant-"

"I suggest," said Mycroft briskly, "that you go and sit down near one of those heaters, and start to thaw a bit, and I'll get you a drink. "

Mycroft returned with a steaming mug a couple of minutes later, and then pulled a small packet out of one of his pockets, and handed it to Lestrade.

"Kendal mint cake," he said, "Tastes appalling, but you probably need something to sustain you. I take it your priority was Sherlock's needs rather than your own."

"I got some Maltesers into him," said Lestrade, as he opened the bar and started to chomp on it. "Didn't manage to get him to eat or drink anything else."

"That reminds me," said Mycroft, "He probably ought to have some coffee as well. Would you...would you mind taking something up to him? It's just if it's me, he'll probably refuse to drink it on principle."

"OK," said Lestrade, standing up rapidly. Maybe if he kept moving, the blood might actually start reaching his toes as well. And anything was better than having to sit around and try and deal with Mycroft.

WRONG! he thought, as he went upstairs. Because there was another Holmes up there, waiting to be aggravating in a completely different way. But to his surprise, Sherlock took the mug and started gulping its contents down.

"Have you eaten all the mint cake, or is there any left?" Sherlock asked, about halfway through his drink.

"I'll see if Mycroft's got some more. Are you OK?" Lestrade couldn't help asking, "I mean, eating something's almost sensible behaviour. Which suggests you're currently in a confused mental state, because you're never sensible."

"Don't try and be clever, Lestrade, it doesn't suit you. I did not intend to inflict hypothermia on myself – well, not to that extent. I made a slight miscalculation, which I now need to rectify as rapidly as possible."

"Before John gets home, finds you're not dead, and then kills you?"

"If Dr Watson starts trying to push me around, I prefer not to be in a state where I collapse too easily. Can you stop sniggering and find me some mint cake?"

***

"There's some more in the kitchen," said Mycroft, when Lestrade came downstairs. "Can you tell him to get dressed, as well, please? Warmly dressed. It's almost time to start the tactical retreat from Baker Street."

How had he ended up as a bloody go-between for the Holmes, he thought as he went upstairs again. Maybe suggestibility increased in the cold as well.

"I'm not going anywhere," Sherlock protested, in between eating--no, refuelling himself.The stuff was practically solid sugar, wasn't it, thought Lestrade. Did he really want to know what Sherlock would be like on a major sugar high?

"Then you come down and argue with him yourself, because you're not doing arguments by proxy!" he snapped. "And get yourself properly dressed, because if you keel over again, I'm leaving Mycroft to be your human hot-water bottle." He stormed downstairs, as fast as his numb feet allowed, and stood facing one of the heaters, wriggling his toes. Did at least give him an excuse not to look at Mycroft, who was sitting staring at the fireplace. The silence between them lengthened, and then Mycroft said, abruptly:

"Greg...I think we need to talk. First of all, I must make it clear-" He ground to a halt as Sherlock bounced downstairs fully dressed, looking smart and in control, and even warm, which was not bloody fair.

"Oh, don't mind me," Sherlock said, smiling. "Pretend I'm not here."

"I hope," said Mycroft, "that you won't be for long. There's a Land Rover outside, and the driver will take you down to Waterloo. In the all too likely event that John's train has still not reached the station,he has instructions to find its location, extract John from it, and take you both to the nearest hotel. But before you so rudely interrupted me, I was going to thank Greg for having saved your life. On the presumption that you weren't going to do so yourself."

It was almost worth the whole bloody day, just to see Sherlock's look of embarrassment, and hear his stuttering response:

"Good. Very. Yes. The mint cake, and erm, the whole thing. The warming. Good of you to come."

"Go and find John, you prat," Lestrade said, smiling, "and tell him he owes me a drink on your credit card. Oh, and to take you down to sodding Bournemouth with him the next time."

"Right," said Sherlock and vanished downstairs. Just hope he gets to Waterloo before the sugar rush gives out, Lestrade thought.Or maybe it wasn't the Kendal mint cake, it was the thought of seeing his partner again. Lucky sod. Oh well, one Holmes down, one to go. Make some polite conversation, and then try and head home without falling in a snow drift. Not ideal, but doable. He turned back to Mycroft, who was now standing stiffly by one of the heaters , rubbing his leather-gloved hands together. "OK," he said, "What's next?"

"I can't...," said Mycroft, and then ground to a halt. He looked across at Lestrade, and there was something suddenly weary, defeated, in him. "I'm afraid I'm not that much more eloquent than Sherlock. I can't thank you enough, Greg, for what you did. You undoubtedly saved Sherlock's life."

"I owed it to John. And Sherlock's an idiot, but you don't deserve that happening to you even if you are an idiot."

"What _do_ you deserve?" asked Mycroft, quietly.

"Dunno. Depends how much you think it matters that you always get things right," he said, looking into Mycroft's wary grey eyes. "Because most people, ordinary people, do some bloody stupid things sometimes."

"Yes," Mycroft replied doggedly, "but it takes a genius to really foul things up. Sherlock almost manages to kill himself accidentally.And I...I deliberately turned my back on a man who'd made me happy. I'm afraid self-destructiveness does rather seem to be a shared part of our DNA."

"It doesn't-"

"Please let me finish," said Mycroft, his eyes earnestly searching Lestrade's face. "When John thought Sherlock might be in trouble, he didn't contact me. I suppose he thought – wrongly, but justifiably – that I might not care what happened to my brother any more. You, however, he trusted to help him.Again, justifiably. John only contacted me when he became worried that you weren't responding, thought you might be in trouble as well. If John trusts you, I ought to do the same. And besides...I saw your expression when I came upstairs."

"And?"

"I have seen many people pleased to get shot of Sherlock, but seldom anyone quite so relieved. I've spent far too long trying to convince myself I was right in what I did, when I knew, deep down, that I was wrong. I can only apologise for my behaviour. Please forgive me, Greg." He sounded like he was half-expecting to be taken off to the Tower and executed.

Lestrade's instinct was to say: _It's fine, you silly tosser_ , but that wouldn't be enough for Mycroft. He had to try and match Mycroft's intensity, like it was some kind of bloody peace treaty. He supposed it was, in a way.

"I made a mistake getting involved with Sherlock, sleeping with him. Fucking stupid to do it, even more fucking stupid not to tell you. Because it's not him I wanted, it's you. You're the one that I want." Oh, sod it, he thought, he had to stop quoting song lyrics.

"Thank you," said Mycroft, and then went on abruptly: "There is another Land Rover downstairs. It can take you, _us_ , wherever you would like to go."

"My flat," he said automatically, and then remembered Mycroft's views about his street. "Peckham in the snow," he went on, "what could be more romantic? Though if you really can't face it-"

"I'd be delighted to, Greg," said Mycroft, and then added, in a vaguely normal tone. "Well, as long as it's not too much like the Arctic."

"We'll be fine," Lestrade replied, smiling. He took his right glove off, and reached out, running his hand gently down Mycroft's cheek, still stiff with cold and stress . "Trust me, I've got warmth to spare."


End file.
